2 pound weight gain in the first week of diet

kaleahbrugnone1995

Hello, I am 21 year old female 5'4, I started my diet at 158 and now I am at 160 after 8 days. I call my eating regime a diet but I guess it isn't that I have just completely changed my eating to quite healthy and cut out the bad. Before I started I was pretty much on a steady diet of candy and bread and pasta. I now eat mostly veggies, eggs for protein and sometimes bread (I try to stick to Ezekial bread) and drink about 60 to 70 oz of water a day.I have my calorie intake goal as 1330 a day (my fitness pal set it to that as I put my goal to lose a pound a week).. some days I will go over by a few hundred every so often but its been rare to go that far over (maybe once or twice). I do 15 minutes a day of either leg workouts or yoga. I am so extremely frustrated that I am gaining weight.. I thought for sure I would drop weight rapidly. I feel good because I know I am treating my body well but when I look in the mirror I get upset.
Back info: I recently got clean from an substance addiction and was either eating like crap (as said above) or starving myself.. I had lost about 15 pounds within a few months but gained it back during treatment.. could my metabolism possibly be so screwed up from that, that its going to take awhile for my body and metabolism to regulate itself out for me to see weight loss?

malibu927

Have you had a meal high in sodium or carbs in recent days? Are you coming up to TOM or ovulation? Is the exercising brand new for you? These will all cause water retention.

booksandchocolate12

Are you logging your food intake? If so, are you sticking to your calorie goal?

For weight loss purposes, it doesn't matter if your food is healthy or "bad". If MFP tells you that, in order to lose 1 lb per week, your daily calorie goal is 1500, and you're eating 1500 calories per day consisting of fast food and cookies, you'll lose weight. But if you eat 1800 calories per day of fruits, vegetable and lean protein, you won't.

kaleahbrugnone1995

I have my calorie intake goal as 1330 a day (my fitness pal set it to that as I put my goal to lose a pound a week).. some days I will go over by a few hundred every so often but its been rare to go that far over (maybe twice?)

booksandchocolate12

kaleahbrugnone1995 wrote: »

I have my calorie intake goal as 1330 a day (my fitness pal set it to that as I put my goal to lose a pound a week).. some days I will go over by a few hundred every so often but its been rare to go that far over (maybe twice?)

OK. So....first, @malibu927 's suggestions are spot on, so take those into consideration.

Also: do you weigh your food on a food scale, or just use measuring cups/spoons? How are you measuring the calories earned from exercise, and do you use them?

mitch16

Not sure if you are counting the calories from your "workouts" and eating those back, but 15 minutes of legs or yoga burns maybe 50 calories.

mila_lova

Congratulations on getting clean! My boyfriend experienced a similar weight fluctuation when he got clean- losing weight, then gaining. Make sure dieting doesn't trigger you. Weight loss isn't linear and it takes time. Try to be patient. The suggestions here are excellent. Good luck!

AnnPT77

It's early times yet. As others have said, time of month can cause water weight gain/retention in women, and it can happen anytime from ovulation through menses, so it's difficult to predict until you've been doing this long enough to know exactly what your body does.

Also, consider that as you're starting out on this process, eating more veggies and drinking more water, your average digestive system contents may be heavier than on your old way of eating: Candy and white bread/pasta are fairly low in fiber and such, so may be lighter during digestive transit than your veggies & whole grains. You're drinking lots of water now; perhaps you were formerly on average somewhat dehydrated, besides.

None of these things would cause a permanent stall in weight loss (and no stall at all in fat loss); they'd just temporarily mask the effect of the fat loss. Shortly, you'd expect the loss in fat to out-pace these factors, and see some drop in scale weight.

One set of factors could be a bigger deal, though: You've said you're set up to lose a pound a week. That's a 500-calorie daily deficit. If you've gone over goal by "a few hundred" a couple of times in 8 days, you may've nearly wiped out your deficit on those particular days, so the loss would be a little less than a pound a week. In 8 days, what you've lost might not be visible on the scale yet.

Beyond that, if you're estimating portion sizes, or maybe picking some not-too-accurate database entries for commonly-eaten foods, or missing logging occasional minor things like oil for cooking, sandwich spread, dressings, tastes/samples, etc., your deficit may not even be at the expected 500 calories.

It's really too soon, at 8 days into the process, to over-react to an apparent 2-pound gain. It's almost certainly some kind of water weight issue. Stick with it for at least a month (so you get through one monthly cycle, at minimum) then evaluate progress. It may be necessary to tighten up your logging or some such change, but you really don't even have enough data yet to know if there's a problem.

I know it's difficult to be patient when you're working so diligently at this, but patience, right now, really is IMO the answer. The results will be worth it!